A very good question I have. Now you know how when you were younger and your mom made you a home cooked meal? Well what are some typical home cooked dishes in Japan? I'd like to know. Cause if I'm to go to Japan, I need to know this stuff! O.o I can't just buy instant noodles and natto all the time! (Yes... Natto...) So what would be some typical meals you would make at home?

How about tamagoyaki (sweetened, very thin layers of fried egg, cooked over fairly low heat, and made into rolls). The texture and flavor are great. I usually accompany it with fresh rice with teriyaki sauce (I just make my own, sweeter version by combining mirin (sweet cooking sake) with some soy sauce - heavy on the mirin for a sweeter breakfast sauce). Japanese have special pans just for making tamagoyaki (卵焼き just means "fried eggs" in Japanese), but you can totally make it in a regular frying pan. If you have trouble actually rolling the layers in (it seems you have to have _just_ the right heat level to do this successfully, and I find that "the right heat level" differs from stovetop to stovetop), you can still just push it into a clump for a very close approximation.

Tempura is awesome whenever. Breaded, deep-fried veggies and meat slices, how can that go wrong? I haven't made it yet myself, but I fully plan to.

And of course, you can always just fry up some meat, slice some veggies, and slap that on top of a nice bowl of rice.

Buy some Udon and some Soba noodles. You can go find some recipes for things that use those sorts of noodles, or just make something up.

If you feel up to it, I recommend buying a Japanese cookbook (in Japanese). It's a great way to learn guaranteed-authentic Japanese cuisine, as well as to build your vocabulary in cooking/kitchen-oriented areas, some words you might not encounter much elsewhere, but will encounter often there. Kitchen knife, cutting board, tablespoon ("big spoon"), teaspoon ("small spoon"), "a pinch", and of course the names of various familiar ingredients such as garlic, carrots, sesame, etc... one of my favorite sets of words I picked up from a cookbook are the names of the fingers of your hand (in describing the proper way to hold various utensils), especially the word for "thumb", 親指... 親 (おや) is a prefix meaning "pro-" (when used as a prefix, it's usually pronounced しん; note that it can also mean "parent", as in 父親 (ちちおや, father) or 両親 (りょうしん, parents), and 指 is ゆび, finger... so the thumb is what you stick up to show that you're "pro-" something.